Asheville-class gunboat (1917)
The Asheville-class gunboat was a class of two gunboats, USSÂ Tulsa and USSÂ Asheville, which was based on Sacramento, an earlier gunboat. Laid down between 1917 and 1919, construction was completed in the early 1920s after which both ships were employed to project US naval power across several different theaters, including Central America and the Pacific, during the interwar years. Tulsa principally served in Asia, assigned variously with the South China Patrol, Yangtze Patrol, and the Inshore Patrol; Asheville mostly stayed in Central America, but did spend a few years on the South China Patrol alongside Tulsa. When war broke out with Japan in the Pacific, both ships were used to escort convoys. Asheville was lost during the war, but Tulsa survived to be broken up in the late 1940s. The class was awarded a total of three battle stars, one for Asheville and two for Tulsa.
Asheville, during her service in the Canal Zone.
USS Sacramento (PG-19) off Tsingtao
A 4-inch gun aboard the destroyer Little, the type carried by the Ashevilles
USS Tulsa (PG-22), nicknamed the Galloping Ghost of the South China Coast, was an Asheville-class gunboat of the United States Navy that was in commission from 1923 to 1946. She was named after the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the county seat of Tulsa County.
Tulsa with a PT boat at Milne Bay, February 1943.